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Although Google’s Performance Max campaigns are still in their infancy, you should be aware of them because they represent a huge shift for the Google Ads platform–especially if you rely on Google Shopping campaigns, as Google is actively phasing out Smart Shopping in favor of PMax.
Keep reading to discover the benefits of Performance Max campaigns and to learn how to set up your first campaign.
Performance Max Campaigns Explained
Performance Max is a new goal-based campaign option that enables advertisers to access their entire Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. It serves as an alternative for Smart Shopping and a supplement for Search Ads that are targeted toward generating leads, sales, and conversion goals.
This means that your keyword-based search campaigns are enhanced, and Google will make it easy for you to locate additional high-converting clients across a variety of Google network platforms and advertising formats including Google Ads, Maps, and Gmail Ads, Search Ads, YouTube Ads, Display Ads, and more.
Your campaigns are automatically optimized using machine learning once they take a close look at your conversion targets. Google’s AI will locate pertinent ad spots throughout the whole Google network, increasing your chances of connecting with your target market through placements on channels you may not have considered.
Budget optimization, audiences, creatives, and attribution are used in conjunction with Smart Bidding and automation technology that heavily relies on machine learning to achieve positive results.
In a nutshell, Performance Max campaigns leverage audience signals, your ads performance, and your marketing objectives to more intelligently guide your spending and increase performance.
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Performance Max Campaign Advantages
Going beyond Search Ads enables you to have your ads display more frequently and accurately without having to make numerous separate campaigns for that purpose, which creates a huge opportunity to find more new customers to convert. Responsive Search Ads are a great first step, but Performance Max campaigns go one step further. By automatically adjusting your budget and bids across all of Google’s advertising channels, Performance Max ads can enhance your online lead generation success or the number of e-commerce conversions you receive.
Performance Max was developed with capabilities comparable to Google’s Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. By utilizing the search engine’s real-time awareness of consumers’ intent, preferences, and other behavioral factors across all of their channels, PMax unlocks new audience segments. Thanks to Google’s machine learning, you can make sure the correct people see your advertisements at the precise time they’re looking for items or services similar to yours.
This is in part due to the more precise predictions made by Google’s AI regarding the combinations of advertisements, creativity, and audience that work best for your particular company. They even take a look at the many touch points that are converting your clients.
This information is not entirely hidden. New data for advertisers, such as details on escalating search trends, will be included in Performance Max reporting. Advertisers will find it simpler to comprehend what is affecting their performance thanks to this, and it might even assist you in spotting brand-new opportunities for successful campaigns.
How to Create a Performance Max Campaign
Performance Max campaigns make it simple for you to advertise your products or services across the Google network. The actions you must take to create this type of Google Ads campaign are as follows:
1. Start a new campaign and select your objective.
Click the “+” button next to “Campaigns” in the menu on the left side of the screen, and then choose “New campaign” from the Google Ads console. Decide who you want your campaign to reach. You can choose the option to “Create a campaign without targeting” if none of them fit what you’re looking for. Choose Maximum Performance as the campaign type.
2. Decide on a budget and bidding
Enter your desired daily spending budget in the “Budget and bids” column, then select your preferred bidding strategy:
- Conversion Value: If the “Set a target ROI” checkbox is selected, the campaign will make an effort to meet the target ROAS (return on ad spend) you provide.
- Conversions: If you tick the box next to “Set a target cost per action,” the campaign will make an effort to meet your target CPA.
Keep in mind that the campaign’s monthly payment limit is determined by the budget.
3. Add your location and language selections in the campaign settings.
Make your choice for your target cities, provinces, states, or countries under “Locations” on the “Campaign settings” page. Your ads will be targeted where you desire, and you can include or exclude any areas you’d like.
Choose the language in which you want to deliver your advertising under “Languages.” To target different customer groups with your ads, you can choose from a variety of languages.
By selecting additional variables, such as ad timing, end URL expansion, or campaign URL choices, you can further customize your advertising.
4A. Create your asset group
The photos, logos, titles, descriptions, videos, and audience indicators you include when creating your Peak Performance campaign are used to create the resource group. Each asset group needs to be named specifically and contain the following:
You can add more groups of assets after your campaign is set up. For each user, the materials will be automatically merged to display the most pertinent creative.
4B. Consider using ad extensions
Ad extensions give users access to additional valuable business information. Based on the objectives you’ve set, the platform will recommend ad extensions to you.
5. Launch your new Performance Max campaign
You will be taken to an overview so you can review every element before you finish setting up your campaign. To complete the process, choose “Publish campaign” when you’re ready.
Meet Your Campaign Goals
Due to the additional creative asset options and additional analytics, we believe Performance Max campaigns are a big improvement over Smart Shopping campaigns and can be an effective tool for companies looking to target customers who are more likely to convert. Make sure to spend some time learning how this campaign type functions and how to utilize it to the fullest.
Need a little extra help configuring your first Performance Max campaign?
Check out this getting started the video from Google!